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Jefferson Adams

Jefferson Adams is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. His poems, essays and photographs have appeared in Antioch Review, Blue Mesa Review, CALIBAN, Hayden's Ferry Review, Huffington Post, the Mississippi Review, and Slate among others.

He is a member of both the National Writers Union, the International Federation of Journalists, and covers San Francisco Health News for Examiner.com.

Celiac.com 02/25/2013 - Patients with celiac disease often report symptoms compatible with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). However, there haven't been any systematic studies regarding how adherence to a gluten-free diet might affect rates of irritable bowel syndrome-type symptoms in patients with celiac disease.

To better answer that question, a research team conducted a meta-analysis of celiac disease patients to determine rates of irritable bowel syndrome-type symptoms, and how those symptoms relate to a gluten-free diet.

The research team included A. Sainsbury, D.S. Sanders, and A.C. Ford, of the Leeds Gastroenterology Institute at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, United Kingdom.

For their analysis, the team searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and EMBASE Classic to identify cross-sectional surveys or case-control studies reporting prevalence of IBS-type symptoms in adult patients (≥16 years old) with established celiac disease.

The team used case or control status and adherence to a gluten-free diet to determine the number of individuals with IBS symptoms.

The team analyzed data from 7 studies with 3383 participants.They then calculated pooled prevalence and odds ratios (ORs), with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

3 Responses:

Before diagnosis, I was told I had IBS. I was afraid to leave the house due to uncontrolled diarrhea. However, even after having celiac disease confirmed first with blood work and then with a genetics test, and going completely gluten-free, it persisted. Only after finally starting a probiotic, Align, did it finally get back under control.